Nepotism/Cronyism Watch

Why would they have to stop supplying the NHS trust to start supplying the VIP channel contract? Are you claiming to have knowledge of their capacity now?

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Why would they have to stop supplying the NHS trust to start supplying the VIP channel contract? Are you claiming to have knowledge of their capacity now?

I'm not sure what your game is here, you are either incredibly stupid or just arguing for the sake of arguing.

I don't need to know Arco's capacity to know they were working up to it!

Sluffy wrote:15. As already noted above, the rapid rise in global infection rates during this period led to a huge surge in demand for PPE. In the NHS, for example, demand for some PPE items increased to several thousand times the normal volume; demand for gowns increased by a factor of thirteen (with a projected annualised consumption of 151 million). The scale of that demand was far in excess of anything that either had been or could have been predicted; the clinical need for PPE to address the specific challenge of coronavirus was both greater than and different from, for example, that required to deal with a flu pandemic.

16. The effect of such increased demand, which was being replicated on a global scale, led to a wholesale change in the relevant market dynamics. Market power shifted decisively in favour of the suppliers, such that the competition was no longer between suppliers to satisfy government/buyer demand, but between a range of different public and private purchasers from a large number of nations. Some countries also responded by banning PPE exports entirely, and some suppliers were induced by more attractive financial offers to renege on existing contractual commitments (this remains an additional risk). An already complex and fast-moving situation was further complicated by the actions of some unscrupulous actors seeking to take advantage of the situation. A worldwide shortage of some of the necessary raw materials and speculative buying by some commercial purchasers served only to exacerbate the situation.

17. Once the scale of the pandemic became clear, the market for acquisition of PPE was very much a suppliers’ market. Suppliers who found themselves inundated with highly attractive offers from across the world would simply have had no incentive to respond to a UK call for tenders, or to hold off from
committing their product on the favourable terms available elsewhere rather than await the outcome of a UK competition. Indeed, as paragraph 26.b of your own letter acknowledges, the EU’s first attempt at a joint procurement exercise for a very limited number of gloves, gowns and overalls failed precisely because of a lack of suitable suppliers coming forward.

18. In these circumstances, suppliers were able to demand significant advance payments, and DHSC understands that other countries were offering to pay substantial sums of cash upfront to overseas producers in order to secure immediate commitments. When new sources of supply did come on stream (for example, because existing facilities had been repurposed to manufacture PPE products), these offers would often only be open for a matter of hours. If negotiations were not concluded in this time, stocks would simply be lost to a purchaser from another country instead.

Do you really think they sat there twiddling their thumbs with spare PPE capacity when all the world were offering kings ransoms for the very thing they supplied???

And I've already shown you as to why as an EXISTING supplier they had no need to apply as a NEW supplier to the VIP conduit channel.

You are either being stupid or a troll or even both but clearly don't understand what went on and why - and as far as I can tell, you don't even wish to as you've clearly not read up on how the system actually worked despite my many links to them.

Ah back to the insults.

No I don't think they sat there twiddling their thumbs, I know they applied to be considered for the government contracts but were (in their words) ignored. See interview with Arco's MD on BBC News at 10 from Wednesday.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Ah back to the insults.

No I don't think they sat there twiddling their thumbs, I know they applied to be considered for the government contracts but were (in their words) ignored. See interview with Arco's MD on BBC News at 10 from Wednesday.

Can't find the interview you talk about so unable to comment on it unless you supply one but as I've shown above as an EXISTING contractor they would NOT have been dealt with by the VIP conduit channel that was set up to find NEW contractors.

Maybe he wasn't aware of the system as such?

And stating the truth to you is not an insult.

You've shown an incredible lack of knowledge and understanding on this thread and you are clearly and deliberately carrying on arguing for your own purposes and not to comprehend, enlighten or enhance the discussion.

Ha, okay Sluffy. The MD of a safety equipment company wasn't aware of the system and made a false statement (uncorrected) on BBC News.

They should have got you on!

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Ha, okay Sluffy. The MD of a safety equipment company wasn't aware of the system and made a false statement (uncorrected) on BBC News.

They should have got you on!

Well I can't find any trace of the interview and you can't/won't provide a link to it so I've no idea what was said, what context it was said in, nor that you even understood what was said and reported on here correctly.

You haven't even given the name of the person interviewed who I believe is David Evison...

https://www.blmforum.net/mag/new-md-arco/

...and no searches I have made links him (or Arco) with a BBC interview on Wednesday, nor any reference to such a major claim from one of Hull's biggest employer even in the local newspaper!

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/

So how am I expected to comment when I can find no trace of the interview even happening, let lone what might have been said on it?

https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/

And fwiw, Mr Evison and Arco was awarded an order for 40m face masks in JULY of this year...

You recently secured a huge order of face masks – please tell us more about it.

With a strong and well-established international supply chain network, we have secured a supply of 40m Type II masks and 90m Type IIR masks. These are currently being delivered in batches over the next couple of months to our 400,000sqft National Distribution Centre (NDC) in Hull. A series of 20 trucks have been arriving in a carefully timed schedule to deliver the first 19m masks to the front line. It’s an effort that we are really proud of.  These type of masks are now urgently needed in the UK, with Type II masks or face coverings a requirement on public transport and other working or social environments where social distancing is not possible.  We are working with a number of leading UK businesses, such as Transport for London to fulfil their requirements for these masks.

https://www.qubeonline.co.uk/we-interviewed-david-evison-managing-director-at-leading-safety-company-arco-on-covid-19/

So I've no idea why he apparently was on national TV two evenings ago and FOUR MONTHS AFTER being awarded a 'HUGH' contract allegedly saying what you said he did!!!

Doesn't seem to stack up really does it?

No trace? Didn’t look very far. Try the company’s Twitter.

I can assure you, it’s not another social media conspiracy against you.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:No trace? Didn’t look very far. Try the company’s Twitter.

I can assure you, it’s not another social media conspiracy against you.

Yes, I saw that, clicked on the link and it took me to a site that was last active in 2013!!!

Maybe that's one of the reasons why I said I couldn't find any trace of the interview?

The BBC spoke with MD, David Evison, in our position as Experts in Safety to discuss Arco's experience supplying PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the latest report from the National Audit Office. Watch the full report on The BBC News at Ten @BBCNewsAt10

— Arco: Experts in Safety (@ArcoSafety) November 18, 2020

So I've still not seem the interview and it seems you can't find any links to it either!

That’s not a site, it’s a Twitter handle. Don’t think Arco’s social media game is too clever.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:That’s not a site, it’s a Twitter handle. Don’t think Arco’s social media game is too clever.

I'm not too sure it is a Twitter handle as the site 'Arco' on twitter is taken by an American company of that name...

https://twitter.com/arco?lang=en

...and that was the first place I found when I did my initial search on twitter, then after a while found the twitter account I posted up above, which as I've said linked the interview to a 'dead' site!

As there doesn't seem to be anybody making a song and dance emanating from the interview and I've clearly proved Arco DID receive government PPE contracts dating back at least four months ago I can only conclude what you heard from the interview (you did watch didn't you or is it yet another thing that you've read on social media and took as gospel?) was along the lines I suggested above, namely Arco mistakenly thought the VIP conduit would respond to them which obviously they wouldn't because they were set up to find NEW contractors and that the SCCL would deal with existing contractors which Arco were.

Maybe there was some understandable miscommunication/misunderstanding at the point when the VIP conduit was created and that's what he was talking about?

I don't know but it seems a reasonable guess for what you watched/read on social media - otherwise I would have thought Maugham/GLP or someone else with an axe to grind would have made a big hoo-ha about it and I can't seem to find anything as such has happened?

I've always said it was inevitable that mistakes were made - maybe this was one of them - but it's inconceivable that Acro didn't receive repeat orders from their existing clients in the NHS/social care services as the whole world was crying out for PPE's and they were in a position to provide them.

I very much doubt they've had any spare manufacturing capacity since the time the pandemic hit and that their order books are full for the foreseeable future, so it's hard for me to understand what their issue was which you watched/read without seeing the interview for myself.

I was referring to the BBC news at 10 handle. Not sure what you’re referring to in that case.

Anyway, if I come across the interview or a transcript I’ll let you know.

Otherwise happy for you to believe what you like and we stop dominating the forum for a bit. Think this topic is killing the site looking at the lack of other posts.

T.R.O.Y. wrote:I was referring to the BBC news at 10 handle. Not sure what you’re referring to in that case.

Anyway, if I come across the interview or a transcript I’ll let you know.

Otherwise happy for you to believe what you like and we stop dominating the forum for a bit. Think this topic is killing the site looking at the lack of other posts.

Seeing I put up the world's twitter link to Arco - which WASN'T the Arco we've been talking about, I thought it might have given you a clue about what I was referring to!

Fwiw I believe you didn't see the BBC interview and so something from someone on social media and believed it as gospel because it fits the narrative you (and to be fair countless others) want to believe is true without understanding how how government actually works, in particular the role of the civil service and it's political impartiality in carrying out its function.

The site is on it's knees because it's not fun and hasn't been fun for years, hatred and ignorance over issues such as Brexit and Anderson has ripped the humour out of it and people playing games behind the scenes and stirring shit up has added to the toxicity.

In a sense it seems to me to be a reasonable reflection of how society is in real life too and the idea of Nuts was somewhere to escape from real life and have a bit of fun for five minutes or so until we had to go back to it!

Well if so we've only got ourselves to blame.

I guess we get what we deserve.

Onwards and upwards hopefully.

What do you mean the world’s Twitter link? Arco safety is the company we’re talking about it’s a different company?

And yes Sluffy, I invented the BBC interview to get one over on you. If you don’t want to believe it that’s fine, bury your head in the sand as you always do when there’s evidence contrary to what you believe.

It’s all a conspiracy theory against you!

T.R.O.Y. wrote:What do you mean the world’s Twitter link? Arco safety is the company we’re talking about it’s a different company?

And yes Sluffy, I invented the BBC interview to get one over on you. If you don’t want to believe it that’s fine, bury your head in the sand as you always do when there’s evidence contrary to what you believe.

It’s all a conspiracy theory against you!

Exactly what I've just said on my post above as to why Nuts is on it's knees.

When you raised the issue of Arco (which I'd never heard of before and I suspect most others on here had not either even you I would think before you saw it on TV/read about them on social media) I looked up what I (and any other reasonable person) would have thought to be their Twitter account and found out it was already taken by another company of that name.

How is anyone supposed to know it has a variation on its name as a Twitter account seeing that it even calls itself 'Acro'??? -

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00133804

And fwiw I've never disputed there was an interview on the BBC just that I reckon you didn't watch it and that you've read something hysteria about it on social media instead and believed it to have been gospel without having any idea of what actually was said or the context it was said in.

Instead of just admitting that was the case you've again manufactured yet another spurious and pointless argument.

You say there is 'evidence' contrary to what I believe, then fine, let's see it, I've certainly no issues at all in finding out the truth but up to now  no one as provided any 'evidence' but simply loads and loads of innuendo.

In simple terms there are three levels of inquiry into this issue - a peer review - that's the civil service, examining what the civil service did - that was the Audit Office report.  The next is the 'political' inquiry, that will be undertaken by the PAC which commences in a couple of weeks, the third is a legal inquiry which would be undertaken by Judicial Reviews if they get that far and the judge doesn't throw them out for having no merit to their request for a review.

Up to now no 'evidence' has been shown as to wrong doing as so widely proclaimed about by Maugham et al since the pandemic struck.

The Audit Office findings DID show faults and omissions in the procurement system - we knew they would, the government had already acknowledge 'technical' breaches - BUT no smoking guns were found.

I'm happy to wait and see what the two remaining lines of inquiry's findings are rather than to prejudge the issue like you and the rest of social media seems to have done.

If there is any 'evidence' out there I'm sure they will find it as that is what they are set up to do.

If they can't then it would all have been nothing more than innuendo after all.

Bring on the 'evidence' I say.

Again, I’m not talking about evidence of criminal activity like corruption that would be very difficult to prove.

From what I’ve seen there’s evidence that public money hasn’t been spent well and its incompetence needs exposing.

Essential reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/20/trump-johnson-sleaze-covid-nao-report-money?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

T.R.O.Y. wrote:Again, I’m not talking about evidence of criminal activity like corruption that would be very difficult to prove.

From what I’ve seen there’s evidence that public money hasn’t been spent well and its incompetence needs exposing.

What 'evidence' is that then?

Are sure you are not mistaking 'evidence' for innuendo?

It's a fact the Ken Anderson was disqualified for being a company director for eight years for dodgy doings.  It's also a fact that after that time he became owner and sole director for BWFC but there's no 'evidence' that he did anything wrong whilst in charge but there's certainly been an avalanche of 'innuendo' that he did.

Should he be banned from being a director for another eight years based on this 'innuendo' because there's no hard 'evidence' he did anything wrong - just that people assumed he did based on putting two and two together and getting five.

Think of it this way, at the end of the day the 'person' who awards the contract is a civil servant, so they would have to be in with the cronyism to award a contract that didn't fit the criteria or wasn't the best they had available to them at the time - in criminal parlance it would have to had been and 'inside job' for the cronyism to have worked.

I don't believe such a thing happened, I don't believe the likes of people such as myself who do those types of job mix in the same world as MP's and millionaire businessmen.  I'm more than happy for to be proved wrong because such people if they exist should be rooted out and thrown in jail.

Let me walk you through the National Audit's Office 'Findings' because clearly you don't understand what they are actually saying...

Sluffy wrote:Findings -

On the 20 contracts inspected - For a Cabinet Office procurement for focus groups and communications with Public First, the Cabinet Office failed to document why it chose this particular supplier, why it used emergency procurement and failed to document any consideration of any potential conflicts of interest.

The Cabinet Office dealt with EXISTING contracts, so these are NOT the one's in via the VIP contact awarding section that nearly all the innuendo of contract awards of have emanated from - this is what I can find on this contract -

...Meanwhile, Public First was given £840,000 to assess the effectiveness of the government’s coronavirus advice, although it was also listed as being to prepare for completing Brexit.

The company is co-owned by James Frayne, who was employed by Mr Gove when he was education secretary, alongside Mr Cummings – now the prime minister’s chief aide.

Critics have protested the work was not advertised, there was no competition and that no official notice of the award has even been published.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-ppe-contracts-conservative-labour-covid-a9622131.html

The Findings go on to say...

Sluffy wrote:For three government contracts for data services with Faculty, the awarding bodies failed to document any consideration of any potential conflicts of interest in two cases and in one case failed to document why the supplier was chosen.

Again contracts to EXISTING suppliers and nothing to do with the VIP section set up and where most of the hoo-ha is over.

This is what I can find on this award -

Artificial intelligence company Faculty, which was awarded contracts worth almost £3m. Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew owned a £90,000 stake in the firm but has since relinquished it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54978460

A bit more here and to be fair it doesn't look good but this is more centred on Cummings and his authority rather than anything to do with PPE contract awarding and the VIP office -

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/vote-leave-ai-firm-wins-seven-government-contracts-in-18-months

The next bit of the finding...

Sluffy wrote:For a DHSC contract for PPE with Ayanda, DHSC failed to consider a potential conflict of interest for a person associated with the company.

Now this IS from the VIP office contract awarding section and is one that Maugham has made a big song and dance about.

Let us see what may develop on this one although the report specifies the word 'potential' rather than 'actual' in respect of conflict of interests.

The final part of the findings relate to...

Sluffy wrote:The Cabinet Office asked the Government Internal Audit Agency to review six PPE contracts that have attracted media attention. The review found that while there was evidence for most controls being applied, there were some gaps in the documentation, such as why some suppliers which had low due diligence ratings were awarded contracts.

These cases are the ones which most people seem to believe would show all the dodgy dealings but the findings don't show that and even commented that " there was evidence for most controls being applied" so if these are seen to be the 'worst' and most controls were applied it gives me confidence in believing nearly all the others were too.

So although I'm not counting my chickens yet it would seem that the vast outrage over the awarding of billions of pounds of PPE contracts on the back of cronyism is simply not there.

Yes, mistakes have been made, we always knew that would be the case but the findings from the Audit Office highlights an issue with two existing contractors both not involved with PPE procurement and for contract values of around £4m in total.  The Ayanda PPE award where there might have been an issue in regards to "The deal was brokered by a businessman who was an adviser to the government's Board of Trade at the time", and the six most high profile cases (presumably those Maugham has been banging on about) where "evidence for most of the controls were applied".


This inquiry dealt with the fine detail if you will, as to what happened in the 'machinery' of awarding the contracts.  To my mind it seemed to have stood up well in general, certainly not looking at this time as to billions of pounds having been wasted as the innuendo people are believing as gospel.

We move on to the 'political' inquiry next and it will be interesting to see if the PAC has something more in its locker than just rhetoric?

No doubt we shall soon see.

okocha wrote:Essential reading: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/20/trump-johnson-sleaze-covid-nao-report-money?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

This is just someone's opinion on the Guardian's public comment section.

In fact he's a Guardian journalist himself who wrote it ...

...wonder if he got preferential treatment in getting his comments posted up than mine...  ...isn't that cronyism if he did?...  ...again the Guardian establishment looking after their own...   ...how much did he get for saying such things...   ...his uncle and the editor of the Guardian play golf together...

Can you see how innuendo (and lies) can work to smear and create impressions that may well not even be true?

Thanks Sluffy. Not looking for a debate with you on this until new information comes out - think we’ve done it to death and I’m not totally convinced we’re on the same page here.

So just wanted to reiterate my position once more, keen to make sure that it’s as clear as possible when new information is released.

Sluffy wrote:

This is just someone's opinion on the Guardian's public comment section.

In fact he's a Guardian journalist himself who wrote it ...

...wonder if he got preferential treatment in getting his comments posted up than mine...  ...isn't that cronyism if he did?...  ...again the Guardian establishment looking after their own...   ...how much did he get for saying such things...   ...his uncle and the editor of the Guardian play golf together...

Can you see how innuendo (and lies) can work to smear and create impressions that may well not even be true?

Right, old chap: back to school for you to learn all about fact, opinion and assertion, so that your willingness to go to great lengths to prove your superior knowledge doesn't founder on basic interpretation and critical reading skills.

While you're there, it might be as well for you to take advantage of lessons focussing on spelling, grammar and punctuation, especially ones that show ways to compensate for what you say is dyslexia.